


Drown Me in Love

by LonelySparrow



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fans, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Narry - Freeform, Narry if you squint, Sad, mentions of food eaten during iftar, more Zouis friendship than Zouis relationship, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 06:38:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelySparrow/pseuds/LonelySparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis's had enough. Zayn's there to keep him from drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drown Me in Love

**Author's Note:**

> So I felt really compelled to write a Zouis because I think those two are actually thick as thieves. I've been kind of down lately, and I've stumbled across a few articles about Louis maybe looking for a way out of the band and that shatters my heart in pieces so I wrote this.
> 
> Standard Disclaimer: Don't own them as they're people and people aren't meant to be owned. Please don't show this to any persons involved/management/etc. because I only wrote this for my entertainment and maybe yours. Thanks!

There’s a knock on Zayn’s door at 2:48 a.m. He swears loudly and pushes the plush, white duvet down to his toes. He sits up for a moment and lets the dizziness of rising too fast seep out of his vision. He goes to the door in just his pants and vows to murder Niall and Harry if they’re pulling a prank again. He opens the door, absolutely prepared to give the both of them a telling off when instead he finds a very rumpled Louis.

“Louis? Are you okay, mate?” Zayn’s voice is deep and soft, withered from sleep.

“How do you handle it?” Louis asks, arms crossed over his chest as he gazes at his sock covered feet. He’s wearing a pair of trackies and a dark gray vest and his hair is sticking up like stalactites. 

“Handle what?” Zayn’s still half asleep and it’s too early to play mind games.

“I can’t do this anymore Zayn. I think I want out?” Louis meets Zayn’s gaze and it’s so steady and honest that his heart feels like it might be stuck in his throat.

“Louis,” Zayn’s voice goes even softer as he grips his friend’s wrist and pulls him inside.

“Mate, you’re just, you’ve had a bad day. Come on, just come get some sleep, you’ll feel better tomorrow.” Zayn doesn’t want to think about the band’s end. As unbearable as taking endless photos with crying girls and the jetlag and the invasion of privacy can be, to stand on a stage and be with his four best friends is unreal, extraterrestrial, amazing. And the money is nice too. He can’t deny himself that small truth.

He thinks of his mother for a moment and the new house that’s been built and he thinks of her stuck in Bradford with his sisters and his dad. He thinks of the smell of fresh paint and new drywall and longs for his old home. The one with the tiny kitchen and huge dining table and the smell of pakora and samosas that never seems to leave. A terrible ache eats away at his chest for a moment and he has to lean against the wall to calm down as Louis takes a seat on the bed.

“No, Zayn. I really…I don’t…I can’t. I can’t go outside anymore. I can’t go anywhere with Eleanor. I can’t be friends with Harry…” Louis’s voice cracks twice. Once at Eleanor’s name, and the next at Harry’s. Harry was his best friend, and still is for the most part, but the taunts of the fans and the speculation caused them to drift apart and their relationship has never really been the same.

“I know, Lou. I know it’s hard. I know it’s…frustrating sometimes. It’s going to work out though, mate. Just another month and then we can go home for five months and rest. You can visit your mum and your sisters and you and El can go vacation in Fiji and everything will go back to normal.”

“I’m not so sure anymore, Z. One Direction’s only getting bigger, and I’m…I’m getting smaller Zayn. I can’t hold the weight up anymore. How do you deal with it Zayn? How?” Louis’s hands are shaking where they’re pressed against his knees to hold himself up. Zayn sits down beside him and places an arm around his shoulder.

“You want to know the secret mate? I don’t deal with it. I stay at home and paint and invite me friends over and we hang out at home. Perrie comes round and we watch movies and play endless rounds of Mario Kart and she kicks my arse, but I don’t tell anyone. I don’t deal with it Lou. I don’t know how. So I hide at home, and I sleep on the bus a lot. I wave to fans. I’m kind of an arse to them. But I don’t owe them anything Louis. We don’t owe them personal details about our lives or our relationships. We owe them a few albums of music, some concert dates, and a few tweets maybe. We don’t owe them every second of our life, just like they don’t owe us every second of theirs. They’ll grow out of us. And we’ll outgrow them, Lou. We’ll make more mature music someday. They’ll find boyfriends or girlfriends or go to university and realize that we aren’t kings or gods or celestial beings from other planets. And some of them will stick with us the whole time because they realized all of this already and are really in it because they genuinely like us. They’ll realize we’re human. That’s how we deal with it Louis. We stop trying to give them everything. Because its impossible.”

They’re both silent for a long time. They listen to the hum of the minibar fridge and the sound of cars passing by on the street below. They listen to the crash of something in the room beside this one (and Zayn remembers that it was Niall’s room and inevitably Harry is there and they’re both mucking about). They listen to the silence. Because they don’t get it very often, but when they do it’s treasured.

“Can I sleep in here tonight?” Louis asks quietly as he wraps his arms around his middle. He doesn’t look almost 22. He looks like a child. A scared little boy. Zayn’s stomach hurts at the sight and his eyes get a bit watery. It’s hard to see their fearless leader so broken and down. It’s hard to see the spirit and excitement and light in Louis’s eyes fade day by day.

“Course you can,” Zayn says and he tugs Louis beneath the covers and spoons around his back, entangling their hands together. He spares a few seconds of thought to the idea that this is taking the whole mates and personal space thing a bit too far, but then erases it out of his mind when he feels Louis heave a sigh and go boneless.

“Tomorrow, we’ll stay inside all day and online shop. We can buy more sculptures for your game room and have them delivered like proper famous people do. Maybe we can order all of the Avengers.” Zayn suggests.

Louis huffs out a laugh and Zayn can see his eyes glow a bit, even in the dim of the room, “Okay.”

“Good, g’night, Lou. Love you.” Zayn mumbles, nose buried in Louis’s shaggy hair. He places a soft kiss there and sighs.

“Night Z, love you too.” 

And they drift off knowing that things will probably turn out okay.


End file.
